Orion Span Announces Hotel Rooms in Space for $792,000 US Per Night

April 8, 2018 – The first luxury space hotel may come from Orion Span, a California-based company, that has announced, in the last week, it is taking reservations for a private suite for two orbiting 320 kilometers (200 miles) above the Earth beginning in 2022. Orion Span promises an “authentic astronaut experience.” We hope that doesn’t include space sickness, a common occurrence for first-time astronauts.

To reserve your hotel room Orion Span is already taking deposits of $80,000 US per person. That puts you on a waiting list for what will be a future 12-day space experience at Aurora Station, the name of your hotel. In the FAQs section of the website iitstates that prices for the entire stay start at $9.5 million. This is for all-inclusive accommodation plus travel to and from Aurora Station. Nowhere does it say if the 12 days includes the launch to the station which could eat up as much as two days of your space vacation based on what astronauts go through to get to the International Space Station more often than not. Orion Span does offer a money-back guarantee up until the actual launch. After that there is no mention of returning your money if you are not entirely satisfied.

The hotel is to be modular in design with each unit a room. Current configuration will include two guest modules and a crew module with total accommodation for 4 and a crew of two. States Frank Bunger, CEO of the company “our goal is to make space accessible to all.” And by all he means those who have $9.2 million to spend on a vacation.

What about launch preparation? According to Orion Span its guests will undergo a three-month regimen to get them up to speed and in good physical shape for the visit. Compare that to the three-days training Virgin Galactic plans to give its space tourist on future flights of SpaceShip Two, or the two years training every astronaut undertakes to go to the ISS.

Your $9.5 million buys you 384 sunrises and sunsets as your hotel room orbits the Earth every 90 minutes over the 12 days. You also get high-speed wireless Internet access to talk and video chat with those back on Earth. Your room is equivalent in size to the interior volume of a Gulfstream G550 jet, approximately 47.26 cubic meters (1,669 cubic feet). The module containing your room is 10.7 x 4.3 meters (35 x 14 feet).

Look at the picture below of a Gulfstream G550 cabin and you see approximately the space you will be living in for 12 days. Of course in microgravity there will be no floor or ceiling so you can take advantage of the entire wall space while you bounce off of them.

Orion Span is still raising money from investors to make Aurora Station a reality, and it has yet to contract a launch provider or the builder of its first module. But its chief architect, a former NASA employee, has come up with the design specification configured to most current commercial rocket companies and agencies including Arianespace, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA). I’m betting even Roscosmos may want to get in on the action.

So is this the beginning of another space race? Will Orion Span, Bigelow Aerospace, or Roscosmos be first to offer commercial accommodation for space tourists.

If everything falls into place for Orion Span, the plans are to add many more modules to Aurora Station in the years to come and eventually offer them to buyers as condominiums.